19 April 2024
NTS Bulletin April 2024
Food Systems Transformation in ASEAN 2025?
By Jose Ma. Luis Montesclaros
Food insecurity is an important global challenge, with increasing rates of under-nourishment globally from 2014 onwards reflecting climate impacts on food production, and further global supply chain challenges amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020, and the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. Food insecurity varies across countries and requires a “territorial approach,” however. Regional platforms therefore allow for leveraging country action in a manner that is coordinated internationally.
A Regional Approach to Food Security
In 2017, countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) committed to the 2nd Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of “Zero-hunger” by 2030. Responding to the Global Food Price Crisis of 2007-08, ASEAN member states agreed on a regional ASEAN Integrated Food Security (AIFS) Framework for 2009-13.
The 2009-2013 AIFS Framework recognised the multi-faceted nature of the 2007-08 GFPC, including the competing demands for land between agriculture and biofuel markets, and interactions between food and energy prices. It also recognised the vulnerabilities of the food sector to climate change’s short-term impacts from sudden flooding, and long-term impacts in productivity growth slowdowns. The region likewise maintains an ASEAN Food Security Information System (AFSIS), supported by China, Japan and South Korea, to improve transparency and stability in regional supplies and prices.
The latest 2021-2025 AIFS recognised the continued prevalence of these issues, while also setting out three principles to for regional partnership, including country-level ownership of their respective development policies and strategies; alignment of donor support behind the priorities of each AMS’ national development strategy; and the harmonisation and coordination of donor efforts to avoid duplication and reduce the transaction costs for ASEAN member states.
A further development in 2023, building on the AIFS was the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Strengthening Food Security and Nutrition in Response to Crises, adopted under Indonesia’s chairmanship of ASEAN in September 2023. The said declaration called for “rapid responses” to food security amid crises, including encouraging each ASEAN member state to Local Resource-based Food Reserve (LRBFR), or its food reserve that it is sourced domestically. This necessitates smooth flows of trade in productivity-enhancing farm inputs, such as seeds and fertilisers, and improved food handling (storage and logistics) within the cold chain and in post-harvest settings.
Shifting to Food Systems Transformation
An important development in the food sector, which sets the stage for the ASEAN regions’ task ahead, is the recognition of the “wicked problem” whereby food is vulnerable to climate change, but at the same time, contributes significantly to it. According to a 20-year study by UN FAO for 2000-2020, agriculture accounts for 31% of global carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The 2023 ASEAN declaration likewise noted the need for “long-term resilience and sustainability of agri-food systems”, such as improving smallholder farmers’ access to finance and investments in the agri-food sector and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
Given the multi-faceted nature of the food-climate sustainability problem, a potential approach moving forward raised during the recent 2024 Global Food Security Conference in Leuven, Belgium, was the need for a transition towards “food systems transformation” (FST). As opposed to purely a food security-focused approach, an FST approach explores how to reduce agriculture’s contributions to climate change, and not just to reduce climate change’s impacts on agriculture and food security. Promoting such transition will require galvanising support from other sectors too, such as academia in shaping policymakers’ understanding on how to transition towards sustainable food consumption behaviours, with products and practices emitting fewer emissions and greater energy/water savings, and in upskilling to equip farmers with the capacities to undertake digital agriculture approaches in this regard as well (e.g., use of drones and crop advisory services).
Food Systems Transformation in ASEAN 2025?
By Jose Ma. Luis Montesclaros
Food insecurity is an important global challenge, with increasing rates of under-nourishment globally from 2014 onwards reflecting climate impacts on food production, and further global supply chain challenges amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020, and the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. Food insecurity varies across countries and requires a “territorial approach,” however. Regional platforms therefore allow for leveraging country action in a manner that is coordinated internationally.
A Regional Approach to Food Security
In 2017, countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) committed to the 2nd Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of “Zero-hunger” by 2030. Responding to the Global Food Price Crisis of 2007-08, ASEAN member states agreed on a regional ASEAN Integrated Food Security (AIFS) Framework for 2009-13.
The 2009-2013 AIFS Framework recognised the multi-faceted nature of the 2007-08 GFPC, including the competing demands for land between agriculture and biofuel markets, and interactions between food and energy prices. It also recognised the vulnerabilities of the food sector to climate change’s short-term impacts from sudden flooding, and long-term impacts in productivity growth slowdowns. The region likewise maintains an ASEAN Food Security Information System (AFSIS), supported by China, Japan and South Korea, to improve transparency and stability in regional supplies and prices.
The latest 2021-2025 AIFS recognised the continued prevalence of these issues, while also setting out three principles to for regional partnership, including country-level ownership of their respective development policies and strategies; alignment of donor support behind the priorities of each AMS’ national development strategy; and the harmonisation and coordination of donor efforts to avoid duplication and reduce the transaction costs for ASEAN member states.
A further development in 2023, building on the AIFS was the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Strengthening Food Security and Nutrition in Response to Crises, adopted under Indonesia’s chairmanship of ASEAN in September 2023. The said declaration called for “rapid responses” to food security amid crises, including encouraging each ASEAN member state to Local Resource-based Food Reserve (LRBFR), or its food reserve that it is sourced domestically. This necessitates smooth flows of trade in productivity-enhancing farm inputs, such as seeds and fertilisers, and improved food handling (storage and logistics) within the cold chain and in post-harvest settings.
Shifting to Food Systems Transformation
An important development in the food sector, which sets the stage for the ASEAN regions’ task ahead, is the recognition of the “wicked problem” whereby food is vulnerable to climate change, but at the same time, contributes significantly to it. According to a 20-year study by UN FAO for 2000-2020, agriculture accounts for 31% of global carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The 2023 ASEAN declaration likewise noted the need for “long-term resilience and sustainability of agri-food systems”, such as improving smallholder farmers’ access to finance and investments in the agri-food sector and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
Given the multi-faceted nature of the food-climate sustainability problem, a potential approach moving forward raised during the recent 2024 Global Food Security Conference in Leuven, Belgium, was the need for a transition towards “food systems transformation” (FST). As opposed to purely a food security-focused approach, an FST approach explores how to reduce agriculture’s contributions to climate change, and not just to reduce climate change’s impacts on agriculture and food security. Promoting such transition will require galvanising support from other sectors too, such as academia in shaping policymakers’ understanding on how to transition towards sustainable food consumption behaviours, with products and practices emitting fewer emissions and greater energy/water savings, and in upskilling to equip farmers with the capacities to undertake digital agriculture approaches in this regard as well (e.g., use of drones and crop advisory services).
